lyrics & love
by thingstogoandplacestodo
Summary: a collection of next-gen drabbles inspired by songs
1. Tread Softly

Your footsteps whisper. You fade into the background, your soul patterned with gray roses that fade into the bland wallpaper behind you. They're the wrong flower for a Lily, but you've always liked them better. They're cliché, ordinary, and everyone loves them. Maybe that'll be you, someday.

You speak, occasionally. Not so much anymore. The words always come out twisted and people laugh or stare or sigh and you don't understand where you went wrong, but even you can tell that you did. So you smile and sit and as long as you're still, you seem almost normal.

If only you were a rose, you think. Bland. A quick smile (that only comes out at _just_ the right times). An even quicker wit (that's never accidentally insulting). Quick to love (a perfect boyfriend and oh how you watch and wish and waste away because he is _perfect_ and he fits oh-so-perfectly with her but you can't get his slow grin and gray eyes out of your messy little head).

Sometimes your arm gets away from you and reaches out to feel the softness of his sweater, but you know that's not _appropriate_ so you snatch it back so hastily that all he sees is a twitch. Sometimes words flood your mouth ( _iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou_ ) and you swallow them so fast that all anyone hears is a strangled groan.

He gives you the same odd looks everyone does, pity woven through his beautiful smile. You think it would be better to be invisible than to see that tired expression every time he notices you. Tread softly.

He could never love someone like you.


	2. Can't Find You

He was born to kind, eccentric parents. He grew up with sweet Lysander as his twin. He attended an old, prestigious school. Everything was in his favor: family, friends, brains, looks, disposition, education…

So what went wrong?

Some whispered that it was the _boys_. That the kisses from dashing James and pale Matt and surprisingly handsome Arnold were wrong and heaven was cursing him for it.

But his lovely mother was an angel, and if she said love was love, then surely that was the word of heaven and there was no more to be said about it.

Some muttered about _nargles_. Not right in the head, they said, and with parents like that, how could he be?

But though his parents were odd, they were kind. They hummed and smiled and sang him to sleep, held him when he cried, showered him with books and love and freedom. They were strange in a good way. He was just plain strange.

Some thought it was karma. All the hot words and fighting and impulsivity that had burned so many of his classmates and tormented his teachers was coming back to bite him, right? Serves him right, the little prick.

But he was kind, sometimes, and he always meant well and he always apologized and he always tried and tried and tried, even if he didn't always get it quite right.

So where did he go wrong?

When did the laughing words and golden smiles turn into plastic Halloween masks? When did his childhood fade straight past adulthood into death?

His mother looks at him, sometimes, tries to see her perfect son in this stranger, and sometimes the light glints off of an edge of blonde hair just like it used to and for a moment she remembers.

His friends avoid him now, but sometimes they can't help but notice the swish of his robes, just like when he walked too fast too much in 1st year.

Lysander hugs him and feels a skeleton. He tries to talk to his brother, tries to smile and touch his heart, but his hands come up empty and he cries and sometimes he whispers "I can't find you anymore."

And Lorcan smiles, a shadow of a half-smile, and sometimes he says "neither can I."

Sometimes.


	3. Trying

It's been months since she saw him, but his soul still dances through her blood. In every dead gray sky, his eyes light up her world again. The golden morning light on a dirty newspaper is the color of his hair. People on the sidewalk, smiling and laughing and crying as they hurry over pavement as broken as she is, are just misspelled shadows of him. Dominique tries to forget, but who can forget the sun?

There's a little kid having a birthday on a balcony, a bunch of red balloons tethered to his chair. They remind her of his tongue, that time she gave him a muggle lollipop and he claimed it was sickeningly sweet but he finished it anyways and his mouth was stained as bright as this random kid's birthday.

Their future was just as bright, once. Stars in his eyes, fireworks in hers, dreams like ribbons woven through their fingers. A glass of sparkling white wine raised to a sparkling golden future.

She doesn't drink wine, anymore. Cheap booze is soaked into her sweaters and sheets and soul. Her eyes shine with desperation and not dreams, but her pillow is dry. Her tears ran out long ago.

(Dominique's done trying.)


End file.
